Members of Tuck’s MBA Class of 2024 take part in the processional during June’s Investiture ceremony. Photo by Laura DeCapua
Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business came roaring out of the Covid-19 pandemic with employment statistics that were the envy of the graduate business education world. And that hasn’t changed — but the landscape has.
For three straight years from 2021 to 2023, Tuck MBAs enjoyed 95% job offers or better three months after graduation, including 96% of the Class of 2023. That streak ends this year: In newly released data, the Tuck School reports that 91% of the Class of 2024 received offers after 90 days.
The thing is, 91% — and the 89% who accepted their offers — still puts the Tuck School in an enviable spot compared to some other B-schools that have reported their 2024 data so far. And the fact that so many others haven’t reported so late in the year is its own small piece of the story of an annus horribilis for job-seeking MBAs.
DARTMOUTH TUCK MBA JOBS BY INDUSTRY 2021-2024
| Industry | % of Grads | % of Grads 2023 | % of Grads 2022 | % of Grads 2021 |
| Consulting | 44% | 46% | 47% | 36% |
| Financial Services | 24% | 23% | 20% | 23% |
| Investment Banking | 17% | 14% | 13% | 11% |
| Investment Management | 1% | 3% | 2% | 5% |
| Private Equity/Venture Capital | 2% | 3% | 2% | 3% |
| Other | 2% | 2% | 3% | 3% |
| Technology | 10% | 14% | 11% | 15% |
| Healthcare/Pharma/Biotech | 8% | 6% | 9% | 13% |
| Consumer Goods-Retail | 6% | 6% | 5% | 5% |
| Energy | 1% | 2% | 2% | 2% |
| Manufacturing | 1% | 2% | 2% | 2% |
| Govt/Nonprofit/Education | 1% | 1% | 2% | 2% |
| Media/Entertainment/Sports | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% |
| Real Estate | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% |
| Transportation | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% |
| Other | NA | NA | 1% | 1% |
| ALL INDUSTRIES | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
Source: Dartmouth Tuck
TECH DROPS FROM 14% TO 10% OF GRADUATING CLASS
Dartmouth has been a stalwart job finder for its grads for a long time. In only one year between 2013 and 2023 did the Tuck School fail to eclipse the 95% mark: 2020, at the peak of the pandemic.
But the troubles in the consulting and tech industries — particularly the latter, the depths of which may have been underestimated — have hit everyone. Tuck’s share of MBAs going into the consulting industry dipped only 2 percentage points in 2024, to 44%, but its techies dropped to just 10% of the class, lowest in four years, the biggest hit to any one industry in the employment report.
“T’24s graduated into one of the more challenging markets in recent years but they never wavered. They put in the work, leveraged the substantial resources at their disposal, and got results,” says Stephen Pidgeon, executive director of career services, in a blog on the Tuck website.
Tuck’s peers certainly had it worse overall on the placement front. At New York Stern School of Business, offers at graduation were down nearly 5 percentage points to 80.6%, while offers by three months after graduation (86.1%) were down more than 8 points. At Virginia Darden School of Business, job offers at graduation plummeted by nearly 6 percentage points, to 86.5% of the class, the lowest level since 2016. Acceptances at graduation actually dropped more than 6 points, to 83.4%, lowest since 2017. Offers by three months post-grad were down from 95.4% to 92.9%, and acceptances at 90 days were down from 94.2% to 90.1%.
DARTMOUTH TUCK MBA PAY BY INDUSTRY 2023-2024
| Industry | % of Grads | Median Salary | Salary Range | Median Signing Bonus | Bonus Range | 2023 Median Salary | 2023 Median Signing Bonus |
| Consulting | 44% | $190,000 | $130,000-$192,000 | $30,000 | $15,000-$50,000 | $190,000 | $30,000 |
| Financial Services | 24% | $175,000 | $100,124-$225,000 | $50,000 | $5,000-$158,500 | $175,000 | $50,000 |
| Investment Banking | 17% | $175,000 | $150,000-$225,000 | $50,000 | $25,000-$158,500 | $175,000 | $53,800 |
| Investment Management | 1% | $145,000.00 | $100,124-$165,000 | – | – | $150,000 | $40,000 |
| Commercial Banking | 2% | $175,000 | $175,000-$175,000 | $50,000 | $50,000-$50,000 | NA | NA |
| Private Equity/Venture Capital | 2% | $160,000 | $130,000-$175,000 | – | – | $175,000 | $10,000 |
| Other | 2% | $150,000 | $120,000-$180,000 | $30,000 | $20,000-$50,000 | $164,500 | $37,500 |
| Technology | 10% | $147,500 | $100,000-$200,000 | $35,000 | $5,000-$222,800 | $160,500 | $35,000 |
| Healthcare/Pharma/Biotech | 8% | $135,000 | $130,000-$150,000 | $30,000 | $5,000-$40,000 | $135,000 | $35,000 |
| Consumer Goods-Retail | 6% | $128,000 | $113,000-$170,000 | $22,500 | $5,000-$50,000 | $128,000 | $30,000 |
| Manufacturing | 1% | $135,000 | $120,000-$155,000 | – | – | $137,500 | $35,000 |
| Energy | 1% | – | – | – | – | $152,500 | $25,000 |
| Govt/Nonprofit/Education | 1% | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Media/Entertainment/Sports | 1% | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Real Estate | 1% | – | – | – | – | $150,000 | – |
| Transportation | 1% | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Hospitality | 1% | – | – | – | – | NA | NA |
| ALL INDUSTRIES | 100% | $175,000 | $100,000-$225,000 | $30,000 | $5,000-$222,800 | $175,000 | $30,000 |
Source: Dartmouth Tuck
MEDIAN COMPENSATION ACTUALLY RISES SLIGHTLY FOR TUCK MBAs
Despite all the headwinds, Tuck’s median compensation in 2024 grew from the previous year thanks to a slight uptick in the percentage of grads reporting receiving a signing bonus. While the class median salary and bonus were flat for a third straight year, at $175K and $30K, respectively, MBAs receiving a bonus grew to 84% from 83% — increasing the total compensation (according to Poets&Quants‘ calculation, which combines salary and bonus and weighs them by the percentage receiving the bonus) from $199,900 last year to $200,200 this year.
That’s a ray of light in a season of dark clouds for a lot of schools. Salaries everywhere took a hit: At NYU Stern, Class of 2024 MBAs reported an average salary of $166,148, down 1.2% from their predecessors, and an average signing bonus of $37,028, down 4.5%. Total compensation — salary plus bonus, weighted by the percent of job seekers who reported getting a bonus, in this case 90% — dropped 1.4% to $199,473. On the plus side, Stern’s median base salary remained a school record $175K.
At Virginia Darden, MBA average salary declined for the first time since the year before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. At Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business, average base salary fell 5.4%; and at Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, starting base salary dropped 2.5%.
DON’T MISS DARDEN MBA SALARY AVERAGE DECLINES FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE COVID-19 and FOR JOB-SEEKING NYU STERN MBAs, 2024 WAS A TOUGHER LANDSCAPE THAN COVID-CRUSHED 2020
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2024-12-09 17:04:08
